Kevin McDaid and Mark Feehily have gotten engaged. Hmm... I know I bang on about this subject a lot, but why do gay men want to get married?? What is it about marriage, a decrepit and pointless institution now that it's original purpose has been distorted by the idea of "romantic love", that makes people want to keep on getting hitched?
But I wish everyone who gets married well, and I will fight for your rights to be dull (well not fight, quietly support you from this armchair here). Against such adverseries as the "Verminator" who wants to veto California's gay marriage bill.
So why do you want to get married, or why do you agree with me?
I'm just going to have to face it. I'll never understand peoples desire to marry (here's a crazy idea, why not just tell the other person you love them, and spend the money on something nice), and I'll never understand conservatives.
Elsewhere... should I set up a new blog at www.jaekay.co.uk? A vblog?
I am straight, single but taken, and have been pondering similar things about marriage myself lately. I like the romantic gesture to legally bind yourself to someone, "I love him/her so much I'm willing to do miles of paperwork to prove it."
ReplyDeleteBut more than that, marriage provides legal safety. Children of a marriage are garunteed support in case of divorce. If there is a power/income inequity within the couple, marriage helps to balance that, as the more powerful cannot leave without supporting the weaker.
And happily married couples have the right to help each other should one be injured. Should I be injured or killed, my boyfriend knows much better than my family what I would most want (ex: treatment options, funeral arrangements, inherritance of property and pets), but since we are not legally related, my family will make those decisions. Imagine if Terri and Michael Schiavo hadn't married.
thanks zandperl for your thoughts, but perhaps the legal problems are just that, legal problems and something that needs to be sorted out by our law makers not by marriage.
ReplyDeletelynn, morals? do you truely believe that marriage = morality? Morality is a state of mind in your every day dealings with others (and with yourself). It is certainly not about performing a set of actions in some sequence in order to avoid living in sin... going to church every sunday, getting married, having children, and being "decent" does not make you moral.
Hehe more religious spam eh? Sigh, always with the holier-than thou attitude :D Did you see my LJ post on that show about teenage abstinence? Scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteBut leave off a bit Jay dude! Ok so marriage isn't your cup of tea but it is for others, simple as that.
I think that Pop Idol or whatever they call it now is a decrepit and pointless institution, but people still like it so that's just how it is :)
Oh and another blog? hehe you can never have enuff can you? Not keen on blogger it has to be said, seems to be lots of comment spamming, and it's gonna be annoying to have to type a word verification just to post a comment! But oh well you gotta keep this blog going as long as possible!
ReplyDeleteAs Zandperl said. Plus property rights. I own my house. As it stands, if I die intestate it passes to my mother; if I get round to marrying to my fiance it passes to him. With or without a will, the house and residual other assets passing to mother/fiance incurs inheritance tax, passing to husband is broadly exempt.
ReplyDeleteAnd that doesn't just apply to the property-owning classes. A widow/widower has automatic succession right to a council/housing association tenancy , are probably joint tenants already, whereas for a non-married couple it really depends on the whim of the landlord. A lot of straight couples I know realised it was actually easier to get married thanto go through a lot of legal rigmarole to establish just some of the rights that are automatic by law; the civil partnership is an attempt to allow this for gay couples.
I wouldn't worry too much about Lynn's comment. What's the betting her husband's playing around behind her back?
If you go with the laws need to be sorted out by lawmakers argument, I would say that there is a strong argument to allow anybody the right to nominate a "Significant Other", which may be a sibling, platonic friend, as well as a lover, to exercise the rights and responsibilities that naturally accrue with marriage/civil partnerships. My feeling is that there should be some constraints on this eg not being allowed to change SO every week, and really, that's what Civil Partnership is. People can make of it want they want. For a lot of gay couples, it is really important to be able to stand in front of the people that matter - friends, family - and say "Here, look, we're in this together, wherever s/he goes, I go, and the Xmas card is addressed to BOTH of us."
Ah, I should have guessed Lynn would have been from the US - nub of morality, hehe.
ReplyDeleteHey! I'm from the US! I'm not that way. although i am gay...
ReplyDelete